Sennacherib
by hobbitsdoitbetter
Summary: "For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast/ And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed..." Lord Byron. Nobody knows what happened to Sherlock Holmes' first love- Not even Sherlock Holmes. Oh, he knows what he remembers, but that couldn't possibly be true... Could it? After all, angels don't really walk among us.


_Disclaimer:_ This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine. I really have to stop writing young junkie Sherlock- I swear the next thing I write will feature Victor Turner having a delightful life. Please note that this is more of a background AU piece than an outright crossover but still... enjoy... And all quotes are from Lord Byron's, "The Destruction of Sennacherib."

* * *

 **\- SERAPH -**

* * *

 _Highgate_

 _March 2_ _nd_ _, 2003_

The first time he notices it, he's very nearly sober.

Sherlock's trying to distract himself from the shakes- _hands can't stay still, heart nearly beating through his chest_ \- by watching the tourists who flock to Highgate Cemetery take their tour. It's an auspicious day, the first time this section of the graveyard has been open in fifty years and judging by the size of the crowd, everybody knows it.

There's an air of festivity, gaudy black bunting hung between the tombstones and printed paper signs proclaiming, "Welcome to the new Western Trail!" A varied crowd mills about the tombs: shorts and t-shirt wearing woman and men, staid, patrician octogenarians in tweed and wool. A goodly portion of Goths and surly teenagers make up the ranks, their black on red (or purple, or day glow green) seeming strangely monotonous.

There's even a journalist- _tall, long coat, former military judging by his bearing-_ there, skulking around and taking more than enough photos to commemorate the day.

 _He looks so clandestine,_ Sherlock muses, _you_ _'_ _d think he was taking photos of a brothel._

The tourists troop loudly through the graveyard, chipper as so many bloody lemmings on their way to the nearest cliff. _(And no, the fact that he hasn't eaten in a day is having no effect on Sherlock's temper)._ Some have cameras, some camcorders. Still others are ostentatiously showing off their mobile phones, thick plastic bricks which look more like a weapon for fighting off muggers than any sort of communication device. _They are,_ Sherlock thinks, _the very definition of "crass."_ One fifty-something American in an aggressively shiny three piece suit is loudly proclaiming that his phone has a camera in it, a fact which is interesting and which certainly ups the price Sherlock would get for it from a fence-

 _But no_ , Sherlock thinks. If he wants to pick the group's pockets then he'd have to get out of bed- if you could call the mess of filth and sheets and pallet he's lying in a bed. And then he'd have to go out into the cold and attempt the criminal version of (he shudders to think it) manual labour. _Bugger that_.

No, the only way he's hauling his arse outside is if he has the money to score something and that's not likely to happen until Victor comes back from Camden- _Victor really_ _ **should**_ _be back from Camden by now_ -

So he turns his attention away from the tourists, lets his gaze roam lazily over the tombs of the cemetery as they trundle out of sight. The one with the camera in his phone can be heard loudly complaining long after they disappear, bemoaning the fact that the battery in his new toy has suddenly died. Several of his fellow travellers make similar claims, their cameras and portable CD players suddenly dying-

Judging by the look on the lingering journalist's face, he finds this complaint as wankerish as Sherlock does, which proves he at least is smarter than he looks.

But still, there's something almost… haunted about the look on the reporter's face. Something that might almost intrigue Sherlock, where this another sort of day and were he still another sort of man- _Which of course he's not._

And because he's not, Holmes pushes his curiosity away. Allows himself instead to feel a pang of pleasure, of relief as the tour group leave.

It's oddly… peaceful, this early in the day to stare down into the cemetery.

So he hunts in his jeans until he locates a cigarette and lights it, lets the smoke waft out of the glassless window to hang like ragged cobwebs on the air beyond. The breeze smells fresh against his own stinking, sweat-laden clothes, the cold welcome against his clammy flesh. It was another bad night last night, another close shave though he doesn't want to focus on that right now. _He also doesn_ _'_ _t want to think about how pissed off Victor was at him for taking so much._ And for that reason he tries to relax, tries to simply observe. Narrows his eyes, tries to control his focus. _Maybe this will help him beat the shakes_. The cemetery stretches out before him like a puzzle, an alien city, a monument to the that particular brand of maudlin at which the Victorians so excelled-

He's ruminating on all this when his eyes come to rest on one particular statue. It's- He blinks and shakes his head. _That can_ _'_ _t be right_. He thinks it's… A new one?

 _A_ _ **new**_ _angel?_

But it can't be, he thinks. The Western cemetery no longer takes in new burials or monuments. And even if they did, he'd have noticed the men coming in, putting this bloody great monstrosity up. He'd have noticed a crane being brought in too, his habit's not nearly far enough advanced yet for him to have missed that-

 _There is a finite degree of noise through which even he can sleep_ , he tells himself stoutly.

That he cannot quite believe this- that he knows, in fact, that he now often passes out with such vigour that even Victor cannot wake him- is not something on which he wishes to dwell.

And so he refuses to dwell on it at all. Instead he focuses on the case at hand, squints more shrewdly at his target. Had a new statue been introduced to the graveyard then the grass around it would be disturbed, which is clearly not the case here. There would be tool marks on the angel, or evidence of being inside a warehouse or some other venue.

 _Yet all the fauna and moss he can see though is native to Highgate itself._

Sherlock frowns, leaning forward to get a better look: The statue appears to be an antique. Bruised in brown muck and green moss, it looks no different from any of its brethren. It looks like it's been there longer than the house Sherlock is standing in. _And yet_ -

As he stares at the object (five foot tall, female, face covered, grey stone- granite? Marble?- carved in the late Victorian style) he can't help but feel that he's never seen it before, no matter that that would appear to be impossible.

 _It_ _'_ _s a new thing in a part of the cemetery which has been fenced off since 1969 and the finds the thought utterly, utterly bizarre._

So he hauls himself to his feet to get a better look- _No need to start doubting himself when there_ _'_ _s probably another explanation, after all._ The pallet groans in protest and with an impatient huff he pulls himself up onto the windowsill, crouches there. Stares down at the graveyard below and tries to work things out; This is much easier now he doesn't have to filter out the tourists' nattering. _It is, it must be said, a great relief_. All that he can hear now are the occasional calls of birds and the faint hum of traffic, surprisingly loud for a site this high up on Hampstead Hill-

The statue remains a mystery though: Try as he might, Sherlock can't remember seeing it before. And he can't work out how it got there from here, which is just… inconceivable.

But there's no way he could be wrong… _Is there?_

There's no way his mind could have been fooled.

He stares hard at it, trying to work out whether his mind's at fault (and trying to tamp down on the stomach-swooping sense of shame that brings) until Victor arrives back with some… distraction. He also brings some chips and a bottle of shitty wine he nicked from Tesco's and together Sherlock and his boyfriend tuck into their meagre feast.

An hour and two hits later and Sherlock's feeling no pain, too blissed out from his particular poison to even remember the statue from earlier on and his questions about it-

He wakes suddenly that night, heart pounding, sweat dripping off him, but he dismisses it as another panic attack. _Occupational hazard of being a junkie_ , he blearily supposes as he curls on his side and wraps his arms more tightly around Victor, the other man's heartbeat sluggish against his palm. The room is so cold their breaths mist in front of their faces.

He doesn't remember what he was dreaming of, but whatever it was, he thinks that it had… wings? Yes, definitely wings.

But then Victor presses a drowsy, soft kiss to his chest, thin, dark fingers curling in his hair and sleep claims Sherlock Holmes once again.


End file.
